Objectives Describe the development of a competent workforce committed to providing patient-centered care to persons with dementia and/or depression and their caregivers; to report on qualitative analyses of our workforce’s case reports about their experiences; and to present lessons learned about developing and implementing a collaborative care community-based model using our new workforce that we call care coordinator assistants (CCAs). Method Sixteen CCAs were recruited and trained in person-centered care, use of mobile office, electronic medical record system, community resources, and team member support. CCAs wrote case reports quarterly that were analyzed for patient-centered care themes. Results Qualitative analysis of 73 cases using NVivo software identified six patient-centered care themes: (1) patient familiarity/understanding; (2) patient interest/engagement encouraged; (3) flexibility and continuity of care; (4) caregiver support/engagement; (5) effective utilization/integration of training; and (6) teamwork. Most frequently reported themes were patient familiarity – 91.8% of case reports included reference to patient familiarity, 67.1% included references to teamwork and 61.6% of case reports included the theme flexibility/continuity of care. CCAs made a mean number of 15.7 (SD = 15.6) visits, with most visits for coordination of care services, followed by home visits and phone visits to over 1200 patients in 12 months. Discussion Person-centered care can be effectively implemented by well-trained CCAs in the community.

As the prevalence of persons with dementia increases, a larger, trained, and skilled healthcare workforce is needed. Attention has been given to models of person-centered care as a standard for dementia care. One promising role to deliver person-centered care is the care coordinator assistant. An inquiry about care coordinator assistant’s job satisfaction is reasonable to consider for retention and quality improvement purposes. We evaluated care coordinator assistants' job satisfaction quantitatively and qualitatively. This study was part of a Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Health Care Innovation Award to the Indiana University School of Medicine. Sixteen care coordinator assistants, predominately female, African American or Caucasian, college graduates with a mean age of 43.1 years participated. Care coordinator assistants wrote quarterly case reports to share stories, lessons learned, and/or the impact of their job and completed the revised Job Satisfaction Inventory and Job in General scales during the second year of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services award. For the Job Descriptive Index subscales promotion, supervision, and coworkers and Job in General, care coordinator assistants scored similar to normative means. Care coordinator assistants reported significantly higher satisfaction on the work subscale and significantly lower satisfaction on the pay subscale compared to normative data. Care coordinator assistants completed 119 quarterly case reports. Job satisfaction and teamwork were recurring themes in case reports, referenced in 47.1% and 60.5% of case reports, respectively. To address the demands of increasing dementia diagnoses, care coordinator assistants can constitute a compassionate, competent, and satisfied workforce. Training care coordinator assistants to work together in a team to address the needs of persons with dementia and caregivers provides a viable model of workforce development necessary to meet the growing demands of this population.

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